


Sympathetic Magic

by Liquid_Lyrium



Series: Advent [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 31 Days of Ineffables Advent Calendar Challenge (Good Omens), 31 Days of Ineffables Advent Calendar Challenge 2019 (Good Omens), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Astronomy, Biblical Allusions (Abrahamic Religions), Crowley Has PTSD (Good Omens), Crowley Has Self-Esteem Issues (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Angst, Existentialism, Fire, First Kiss, Getting Together, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other, Pining, Pining Crowley (Good Omens), References to Aztec Religion & Lore, References to Norse Religion & Lore, References to Paganism, Reindeer, Self-Worth Issues, as much as it applies to an eldritch inhuman being
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21740527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium
Summary: Humans have always been terrified of the midwinter dark. They've done so many outrageous, terrible things to banish it, to rekindle the sun. To stop the world from ending.They aren't the only ones who are scared.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Advent [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561270
Comments: 54
Kudos: 106





	1. Sympathetic Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Humans are right to fear the dark.

Crowley could have thought about heavenly flame, blazing swords and how his own relationship with it had changed. He could have thought about hellfire and boiling sulfur and flaming sigils. 

Sometimes he wondered if his lot had stolen it. The heavenly fire. Like Prometheus only infinitely more selfish. Not heroes, just sore losers on the wrong side of the first war. They hadn't gone up the mountain to see the burning bush, but stole it and smuggled like Louhi on their way out the door. Turned it into something else while taking revenge.

(Is that why Heaven stopped giving out flaming swords and turned to water instead? Floods and baptisms and blessings?)

It wasn't that at all. Not really.

Instead Crowley thought about darkness. He briefly thought of one night's worth of oil burning for eight. What was fire for, if not to cleanse and banish darkness? To burn everything away and start anew?

In the beginning there had only been darkness and void and chaos. Light came after, but at first it was not divided from dark. Not until the Almighty decreed them to be separate.

Just as the same had come to pass with sky and water.

Just as it came to be with Heaven and Hell.

Crowley's thoughts turned darker, staring into his empty fireplace. Space void, starless dark. Midwinter dark.

 _They're so afraid of the dark._ _They offer so many things so many sacrifices. Burnt offerings to appease. Have You not seen how winter terrifies? Year after year. The shrinking of days._

Who was it who knocked the earth’s axis from its perfect, perpendicular state? Who flicked the spinning top of the Earth and set it to tilt and wobble? Caused the seasons? Was it him? The impact of angels falling from Heaven? The Almighty Herself? Were seasons part of The Plan or a happy accident? Were they necessary? Certainly they gave life, but fall and winter still seemed cruel, all these years later.

Despite the patterns, despite the longer arcs of star movements that humans could only chart across generations and not within a single lifetime, despite the repetition, humans feared the passing of seasons. They feared the sun would not return. They feared that winter would never end. They feared that they were unloved in an uncaring universe. Abandoned.

Crowley thought of Yule logs, burned to coax the sun out of stillness. He thought of humans, already terrified, telling ghost stories to justify their fear. Of Demeter’s wrath and grief that wrapped the earth. Of stones moved over a hundred miles to chart the shifting of the moon and sun. Of the twelve days of Zagmuk. Of ritual sex and human sacrifice so that the world and sun could be reborn. Of the twelve days of Yule and all the feasting and fire, blood and animal sacrifice. Of the leftover days between the reckoning of a lunar calendar and a full revolution around the sun.

He thought of the fifty-two year cycle and the rebirth of sacred flame under the constellation of the fire drill. Where a man's heart would be torn from his chest to rekindle the flame of the gods. Burning inside the ribs in the remains of the torn out heart. Staving off the end of the world. The fire from that chest spreading to every hearth throughout the city. It seemed to be coming closer now. Maybe the Aztecs had been right. Maybe they had kept it at bay for a terrible price.

He thought of a child who had never been born near midwinter. Whose birthday had been miraculously moved. He thought of Lussinatt, sleepless nights and candle crowns—once for pagan gods, now Christened for Saint Lucia. Papered over lovingly. Wrapped and re-gifted like Saturnalia.

Someday there would be another child, another birthday. He tried not to hear those whispers. Tried not to listen too closely because it was still a _long way off._ He didn’t need to pay attention yet.

The demon wondered if the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Prince of This World, and Lord of Darkness would be born on Christmas, or Christ’s actual birthday. By one calendar or another.

Crowley snapped his fingers.

 _They’re right to fear the dark_.

He settled in to watch the fire burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Me @my own fic: I've had enough of this guy.~~
> 
> Here it is! I backtracked and did day five's prompt for Fire. Have more existential bullshit and ruminations via Crowley. (Also the [Tumblr version](https://liquidlyrium.tumblr.com/post/189584779155/sympathetic-magic)


	2. Natural History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With enough time and transformative forces a joke can be told.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt of Reindeer.

There was something about fire that made Crowley think about ancient times alongside the fear of the end times. An endless sky, the first rain. A wall.

It made him think of huts made from mammoth skulls, stitched skins, and people huddled together against winter. Of evidence wiped away by floods and glaciers.

Maybe all those thoughts about the past were why he simply said, “Natural History Museum,” once Aziraphale picked up after the fifth ring. Their check-ins happened a bit more often now. Ever since the sixties. It’d been about six months since he last saw the angel, and he was feeling a bit _itchy_.

They met in the exhibit for the Ice Age. For a moment, Aziraphale was framed by the huge antlers of the Irish Elk at the end of the hall. Like skeletal wings. Crowley sidled up beside him, admiring the scimitar cat diligently articulated and mounted before them.

“So the internet’s really taking off,” Crowley announced casually. As if he were making an observation about the display. “Nearly done switching it over to totally privatized in America. In a few decades there’ll be a smorgasbord of plans to choose from, and the service they want constantly out of reach for their area. Lots of potential wrapped up in that.”

“Hm,” Aziraphale did not terribly approve of computers, although he did own one for tax filing purposes. By technology standards, it was already on par with the relics before them. “Seems like a lot of bother, but I’m sure you’ll find something clever to do with it.”

“That’s what I,” Crowley hastily substituted the word that was nearly about to fall stupidly from his mouth with, “respect about you Aziraphale. Even if you don’t _approve_ of something-”

“Which is everything, professionally speaking. And honestly, there are things you, do personally speaking I _wouldn’t_ approve of, even if my job _didn’t_ require it.”

“Even though you don’t _approve_ , you _appreciate_ it. More’n I can say for the lot downstairs,” Crowley shoved his hands into his pockets. Stretch denim was a marvelous invention this century. All the tightness with less discomfort.

“I was asked if I was going to be participating in the betting pool on when the next pope will be elected,” Aziraphale held his hands together primly in front of himself.

Crowley scoffed, “As if your lot actually cares what goes on in the Vatican.”

“We don’t,” Aziraphale agreed. “But the current pope has had rather a long run, and I suppose it’s what passes for entertainment in Heaven these days.” They sauntered vaguely over towards a wooly rhino skeleton.

“Doesn’t seem proper. Angels gambling.” There was something ghastly about looking at an animal without its face. Without all the fleshy bits. _Like it’s proof the heart doesn’t matter. The organs don’t last after death. Just bones, if you’re lucky._

“Well, I did decline on those grounds. I wonder if it was meant to be a test,” Aziraphale tilted his head thoughtfully. Somehow there was a stuffed stork on display behind him. Wings outstretched.

_Testing you without warning? Yeah, sounds about right. Auroch shit._

They wandered around the exhibit, the suggestion of wings followed Aziraphale everywhere. Fossilized wings, arcing bones, branches of reconstructed greenery all seemed to sprout from his back at every turn. Crowley wondered how the universe chose to frame him.

Did Aziraphale see antlers of the caribou rise from his skull? The horns of an antelope? Did the bear’s maw yawn open around his skull? Did the sail of the Dimetrodon in the Permian exhibit frame his head like a repulsive halo?

Crowley darted his gaze away from the angel, thankful his glasses allowed him to look his fill without being _too_ obvious. He read over a plaque explaining that, yes, humans took out this species too. With the help of a change in climate.

“Don’t care for of all of this environmental stuff that’s happening. Humans have got time to do something about it, but I dunno. You think they could off themselves before our sides get around to Armageddon?”

Aziraphale twisted his fingers, his mouth twisted too. “They’re rather clever aren’t they? Humans, I mean. I’m sure they’ll figure something out.”

 _What about us? Shit, don’t think about it yet. Long way off, long way off._ “Yeah, want to get a snack at the cafe? Dinner rush’ll be hitting the streets soon.”

There was a moment where Aziraphale looked like he was about to refuse, but then he acquiesced. “Yes, I am a bit peckish. A quick bite to eat then.”

“You know I invented captive pricing?” Crowley allowed himself a suitably sinister grin.

The one Aziraphale gave him in exchange seemed terribly fond. “I do know. You really did deserve a commendation for that one, my dear.”

Crowley swallowed, and his voice died on his tongue. He ended up purchasing the most expensive sandwich on the menu for the angel. He got a Darjeeling for himself.

"This was nice," Aziraphale said, smiling over at Crowley. "I always feel better after seeing the dinosaurs and suchlike."

And because he was a demon, Crowley couldn't leave well enough alone. "Oh? Feeling all superior are we? Sniggering at your so called fakes?"

It was an argument that was as ancient as the Earth.

“Fossils aren’t _real!_ You _know_ that Crowley!”

“They _exist._ They’re in the ground, and they make up a bloody story. Just because those things didn’t live out a natural life doesn’t mean they aren’t _real.” They're real enough to the humans. That counts in my book._

Aziraphale scoffed, “Yes, of course they are _extant_ . That’s like saying a _forgery_ is real because it exists and people fall for it.”

“D’you still have the Michelangelo fake I got you?”

“Wh-yes, it’s over by the lewder bits of my Roman antiquities section. See? _That’s_ a joke! Just like the dinosaurs. That’s all fossils are. Jokes.” Aziraphale wiggled in his chair with that pleased little smile, looking like a proper angel. Smug and punchable.

He could smell Vesuvius on the air, waiting to make more _jokes_ under a layer of ash. “What’s the punchline, angel?”

“Well the subject of the statue-”

“Not _yours_ ,” Crowley snarled. “Course I get _yours._ It’s actually _funny._ The _fossils_. What’s the punchline there?” It was an ancient argument but it coursed through him tonight. Raw like silt through his veins. Eroded through him until grit threatened to extrude up through his skin.

“Hm?”

 _“What’s the punchline?”_ He rounded on Aziraphale, hands clutched too tight around his mug. “The bloody _fossils_ , and the _false history_ what’s the punchline!? I was _there_ at the Beginning— _before_ the Beginning! I have a right to know! Why aren’t I in on the joke?”

Fossils were real.

He was living proof.

His bones had changed beneath his skin. Somewhere at the bottom of a pool of boiling sulfur his bones had been burned out by brimstone. His holy essence gone with just a hollow left behind. Fill that void up with minerals and questions and wait. Wait a hundred million years for the light to finish its journey from the stars, and that’s how fossils were made. How jokes were told. He was the dead thing and Aziraphale was the extant creature. They’d come from the same original stock, but that was no longer true. Wasn't something they shared.

_I hate this. I hate this. I’m not a joke. That fall was not a punchline. I’m not a chess piece in an ineffable game. I’m not a sail-backed forgery. I’m me._

The angel frowned, and glanced around nervously. An avian mural on the wall behind him framed his head with white wings. “Why don’t we go back to mine and finish this conversation over a good bottle of wine? I have-”

“Scotch,” Crowley hissed through teeth, just to be contrary. Immediately they were seated in the bookshop, a bottle of scotch open and waiting. Crowley got to his feet and grabbed it by the neck and drank like he had something to prove. He finally pulled away with a sharp exhale and wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist. “So? Answer the question, angel.”

Aziraphale drew in a breath, held it in his lungs like something precious. Crowley felt his anger flare beneath his skin. He couldn’t _see_ , white blinded his vision as a sick wave of jealousy coursed through him. _Jealous of the fucking air, now that’s a joke. Pathetic._ He shook his head, and waited, taking another hit from the bottle.

“Georges Cuvier,” Aziraphale finally said, a touch nervous. Almost breathless.

There was a sound in his brain almost like metal screeching and grinding to a halt. “ _What?_ ”

“Georges Cuvier,” Aziraphale repeated firmly. “I think, anyway. Hard to be sure.”

Crowley generally did not need to blink, but he did so now, anger slowly ebbing away, “What in Heaven’s name are you on about?”

“Think about it, the man was instrumental in proving extinction, yet he didn’t believe in evolution! He was a proponent of catastrophism-”

The memory of a flood darkened Crowley’s mood again. The visceral heat-memories of Almighty wrath, volcanoes, and fire raining from above pressed against his skin. “Well he wasn’t entirely wrong about that one,” he lifted the bottle again, only to find that it was empty.

He looked at the angel imploringly. As imploringly as one could behind a pair of sunglasses. A moment later there was another bottle, and Crowley grabbed this one too. He felt too exposed. Too naked. Mounted and articulated, all the hollows where his organs belonged on display. If he drank enough, it might fill up those spaces. Obscure his immaterial, irrelevant, eroded heart.

“So, yes. Georges Cuvier. As good a punchline as any,” the angel rubbed the knuckles of his middle finger, worrying them in the most distracting fashion. A tiny motion that cut through his anger, or maybe added to it. Crowley had helped make Creation, how had he fucked it up so badly that they’d ended up with so many obstacles between them?

_I need you. Can you feel it? You’re all flesh, and I’m all bones. Fossilized. We could perform a miracle, if you like. Used to raise the dead all the time. Stuff you in my chest, let you be the heart of me. The organs I lost._

He wasn’t sure how he could be so wounded, so _furious_ , and still want Aziraphale through it. It wasn’t the right moment, if there ever could be a right moment, but he could feel the words building on his tongue. As they had so often before. Ill-advised confession fueled by alcohol.

_I hate this. I hate this. You’re so oblivious sometimes it has to be a joke. The setup to my punchline of cowardice. Demons aren’t supposed to have four letter feelings, but I’d try for you. If you can settle for a forgery, I’ll give it to you. All of it. All of me._

Another hit of scotch. He opened his mouth, ready to excavate words long buried. _You can put me on display next to all your other treasures. Rearrange my bones to whatever shape pleases you, put my head on the wrong end, configure my legs wrong, graft me together with pieces from other specimens, make whatever mistakes you like, just reconstruct me._

He said none of those things. Crowley spoke through a voice burned by alcohol and said instead, “As good a payoff as we’ll ever get, I suppose.”

“Quite,” Aziraphale said, eyeing Crowley carefully. As though he didn’t know what to expect. Which was fair. He wasn’t the best person when he was moody like this. “You know I think it was the Irish Elk that Cuvier was studying that lead to his contributions to the idea of extinction. That large fellow we saw today. Where we met.”

“Didn’t they think those bones were reindeer at first?” Crowley tried to remember the scraps of information he’d read, though his eyes had mostly passed over it. It was difficult to digest postage-stamp sized summaries of times he’d lived through.

“Yes,” Aziraphale pulled his fingers along his other hand again.

Crowley laughed suddenly, and the angel looked at him more than a little bewildered. He just shook his head. “Georges fucking Cuvier, huh?” He allowed himself a sardonic smile and another pull from the bottle.

He dropped himself back down on the sofa, feeling drained and oddly renewed.

 _I hate this_ , he tried to convince himself. Because he was a demon, because that’s what his transformed bones demanded. _I hate this._ _I hate how much I want to say it. I hate how much I think I love you. With all this nothing under my skin._

Aziraphale smiled at him, a minor miracle from days of old.

Something dead inside Crowley’s chest stirred in answer and turned quick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~If Crowley were an ultranerd like me, he would know that on extremely rare occasions, soft tissues do get fossilized.~~ This may be the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written. My love of fossils, angst, and Good Omens all wrapped up into one delicious piece. Thanks to EpiVet and AJ from the Ineffable Temptations discord for the once-over on this!


	3. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Do you remember what I almost said hundreds of times? In this very room?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt of ghosts.

**[London Soho - Present day]**

They don’t say it.

The world had ended—after a fashion—and they hadn’t said it.

Crowley sits in the bookshop, on the arm of a sofa reconstituted. The atoms of it are young and new, they hold neither the age nor the history of the original. Somehow, improbably, it holds all the same smells. Crowley can almost, almost make himself believe the fire was a terrible dream, but for the gaping wound in his chest. The tension threaded beneath his limbs. His knee bounces in place from a tremor that runs up his nerves from his pistoning heel.

Crowley can't smell the couch anymore.

His nostrils are full of burned paper and his lungs are choked with smoke. He grips the stem of his wineglass like an anchor. He hears Aziraphale, just faintly, but Crowley sees his lips with perfect clarity.

He feels like he’s sitting on a match head. Like the walls are striking paper. Like everything is about to go up in flames.

This fire doesn’t make him think of ancient times and ancient ways, but it haunts him like ancient ghosts.

His only salvation is Aziraphale, here, radiant and holy. Unknowingly casting off a gentle glow, like moonlight. Crowley tries not to think of the fact that ghosts only appear at night.

Aziraphale must have asked him something, because a frown creases over those features. Worry settles onto that brow. Two perfect thumbnails fuss at each other.

Putting that expression on the angel’s face feels like a firehose to the chest.

Aziraphale says something Crowley can’t hear. Nothing but a spectral vision. He can just pick out the vibrations of his tone. Can guess at what he says. _Are you alright?_

Crowley doesn’t have an answer for that. He opens his mouth, trying to say what he’s been trying to say for longer than he can remember. Before he put a name to the feeling. Before he knew he felt it at all, and his voice dies in his throat.

Another silent casualty.

 _Do you remember what I almost said hundreds of times? In this very room? In the next room over?_ Only none of these rooms are like the old ones, because none of them are where Aziraphale died. None of them have ever burned down to a husk with everything the angel loves inside.

This shop, new and familiar, is somehow full of the same old ghosts and memories. The same smells.

The same dance.

The same deaths in his throat.

The same phantoms in his lungs.

“I have to go.”

Crowley leaves. A devil chased out by demons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, sometimes you just gotta change tenses in the middle of your established story ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Thanks to EpiVet and AJ from the Ineffable Temptations discord for the once-over on this!


	4. If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I can't say it like this. Pathetic and drunk._
> 
> It lingers on his tongue anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Cider. Chapter title comes from a Carl Sagan quote from the original run of _Cosmos._

He doesn't know where he is. It might be the bottom of a barrel. More likely clinging to a bar, because where else should he be? (He’s always in a bar when he hits his lowest lows.) The world around him is a blur. The only tether he has a glass in his hand. Full of cider. Wassail, actually. Hot and old and pulled from a different century. Threatening to pull him under.

 _It isn’t black out drunk if it’s just sleepiness._ He rationalizes.

He's consumed an extraordinary amount of alcohol, even by occult standards. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since he started. The last time he was this drunk was the fourteenth—no fifteenth century. Inquisition. The thought of it makes him shudder and tip back another spiced, burning goblet of wassail, draining it in one go. He can feel it run down his throat, soak into his shirt. The heat bleeds out of the black silk too quickly. Clings cold and damp to his chest.

Is it alcohol abuse if his liver won't get cirrhosis? If he won't die of it? If his body doesn’t experience addiction? Does that make his behavior worse?

“More cider and a bottle-a bottle’f whiskey,” he slurs, not sure where it should come from, slaps his palm against a smooth wooden surface. Probably a table. He fumbles blindly, but there’s no bottle forthcoming, and his glass is empty. The fingers of his free hand fumble uselessly, unable to snap, to pull up power from the depths of Hell. A sound wells up at the back of his throat, and his eyes burn with frustration. That noise isn’t a sob. It’s not.

“Oh _there_ you are!” Crowley curls up and turns away from that voice full of rapturous joy and relief. From the smear of cream and white that floods his vision. A moment later he falls to the floor, only it isn’t as far away as it should be. The shape of his surroundings become a little clearer, even if they do not sharpen into focus. _Ah, a barstool?_

“I’m _so_ sorry about him, yes… Yes. Oh, it’s much worse than it looks, but I’ll make sure he gets proper care. Give us a few moments and then I’ll take him away, alright?”

The touch of gentle hands on his shoulders is achingly familiar. He tries to shrug them off once, futilely, before he gives in. “Angel,” he bites back a wave of nausea as he’s deposited into a booth. (He thinks it’s a booth, anyway.) He spills over the table, hand still clutching his glass. “Gotta stop pickin’ m’up like this in bars. Like this. Gonna-I’ll get th’wrong impression.”

"Will you?" The angel's tone is light. Amused. _Good. Don’t want you to worry._

"Yeah. Make me think y'like me or somethin'."

"I do."

The wassail left him warm and boneless. _Spineless_. Crowley curled in on himself. "Don't," he whines.

The world is spinning and there's a sharp pain arcing through his skull. Through the sinal cavities and bony arches that do not perfectly map to either reptile or mammal. He is fairly sure he imagines the angel's words, if there are words and not just a gentle, thoughtful hum. So light and insubstantial they jumble together in place moments later. _Too fast?_

It isn’t imagination when the angel asks, "Will you sober up please?"

"No." Crowley is bad at denying the angel—Heaven's good enough at that, that's their job—but he's worse at caring for himself. He swallows around the threat of bile crawling up the back of his throat. Like the rising water of a geyser and just as burning.

"Just a little," Aziraphale says, still so quiet. "Just the tiniest bit, enough to get you home."

"Where's home?" He slurs stupidly into an arm. _I'm an exile twice over. Begone misbegotten snake! A runaway. ‘Cept I didn't get to run. Not to the stars. Nowhere to go. You were right._

"Your flat," Aziraphale says softly again. The demon flinches as his words grow even the least little bit firm, "I really must insist, Crowley."

"No," he slides into his too-long spinal column. Settling in for a pointless battle, a too-long nap.

"If you don't do it, I will," Aziraphale's voice is the barest ghost of a threat. It's never been more terrifying, for as gentle as it sounds.

"Uh-uh." His fingers tighten around the glass. It's a miracle that it doesn't break. Or a lack of one. _No power in these drunken hands_. Crowley squeezes his eyes shut against a too bright, too loud, too new world.

"Crowley." His name is something soft and delicate. Like it could have been his name in Heaven.

"Y'won't. Y'wouldn't."

"I will and I have. How quickly you forget."

Crowley feels his nose wrinkle. Glasses pressed against the crease in his brow. "When?"

"Spain."

"Oh."

"And a couple times the century before."

"'M entitled."

"I didn't say you weren't."

"’Mplying it." His mouth curls around sour words.

"My dear-"

"Don't." Crowley swallows again, acid on the back of his tongue. "Don't _wanna_."

"Which? Go home or sober up?"

"Either. Both. Sleepy." He lets out a long sigh.

"Honestly you're more dramatic than Lord Byron and Oscar put together some days. This is your last chance."

"Fuck off."

His stomach rolls, tumbling and sloshing over itself as Crowley feels the fizzle alcohol in his bloodstream suddenly evaporating. Everything seems a little less muted, and it’s less like he’s navigating the world via miracle. He slowly pushes himself upright, lifts a shaky hand to push his glasses back in place.

A moment later he realizes Aziraphale's kindness for what it is because the angel pulls his boneless arm across his shoulders and hauls him up to his feet. His dizziness is compounded as they're standing outside his flat a moment later. Crowley shoots out a hand and steadies himself desperately against the wall. Gagging but not actually vomiting. If he hadn't been sobered up he'd certainly be regurgitating that extraordinary amount of alcohol all over his shoes. (Or maybe it had been a small amount of extraordinarily strong alcohol.)

He swallows to try and coat his throat with the lingering taste of fermented apple skin and pulp.

“Made your point,” he mumbles, pressing his forehead to the back of his wrist.

He doesn’t know what to do when he feels—what _are_ those tiny points of pressure at the base of his spine? _Oh! God, Satan, Someone_ , he sucks in a hissing breath as he registers the press of Aziraphale’s thumb and two fingers just above his sacrum. His lungs shudder, and he lets the angel walk him into his own flat. (Thank Somebody that the plants can’t see him from here, draped over the angel’s side and struggling more than usual to put one foot in front of the other.) He allows himself to be carefully laid onto the couch like an apple plucked and placed tenderly in a trolley.

Crowley settles into the couch, lying on his belly. He feels the weight of a thick blanket covering the length of his body, from the back of his ankles to his shoulders like he’s something precious and breakable. An ancient specimen taken from some collection and set on display.

“Be’er not be tartan,” he speaks into the cushions.

“Ungrateful wretch.” Crowley flinches at the unseen smile, a tiny whine in his throat at how _fond_ sounds.

His feet sink a little and he can feel Aziraphale settle at the other end of the couch. After a few minutes he hears the sound of a page being turned.

Crowley swallows thickly, and he’s tempted to miracle more booze into existence. His face is hot and he can’t seem to enjoy the dizzy, floaty level of inebriation the angel left him with.

Crowley can’t get comfortable.He feels himself tense as the silence stretches between them. With every flip of a page. He almost, almost decides to sober up, but loses his nerve at the last moment. When he can’t bear it any longer he tips his face to one side and croaks out, “Aren’t y’gonna ask me ‘bout it?”

Despite the sound of paper sliding against paper, Aziraphale’s answer is smooth and immediate, “It’s a quilt. Not tartan. Well, not fully. There are a few touches of it in the pattern, I couldn’t help myself.”

“Wha-?” Crowley feels all the muscles in his face scrunch up in confusion.

“Did you want me to ask you about it?”

“I-ye-no. You can. Can’t stop you.” He swallows and rolls over onto one side, facing the back of the jet black couch.

“I won’t ask then.” Another page. Crowley peeks over from the very corner of his eyes—a mistake in his drunken state—at the small book in the angel’s hands. A black, hard-backed thing bound in leather. Not unlike the couch. Aziraphale lets his eyes slide shut behind his glasses. “I will say… usually you go quite a bit longer… between dire straights like that. Centuries and decades, not months.” Fourteenth century excepted, but honestly, who could blame him for that?

The demon makes a non-committal noise before answering. “Guess so.”

“Will you tell me why you ran, even if I don’t ask?” There’s the barest brush against his ankle and, somehow, he falls just a little bit more in love with the angel. Has to hold in the most ill-timed declaration in the history of old earth and new. Before Armageddon and After Armageddon.

 _I can't say it like this. Pathetic and drunk._

It lingers on his tongue anyway. At the very end of it. Suspended between the forked tips.

"I've never feared fire more than th'dark," is all he says instead. He doesn’t know if any creature outside his own not-mammal, not-reptile skull will understand. He pushes his bangs back wretchedly.

Five more pages pass before the angel speaks again—his words wielded as delicately as a paring knife trying to skin a fruit in a single spiral, “The last time I saw you that way… you said you’d lost your best friend.”

Crowley’s eyes snap open and he wishes he’d stopped the pained intake of breath before it started.

“Tha’s true,” he manages.

There’s the sound of fingers on leather, of paper being adjusted. “At the time I thought,” Aziraphale pauses, his voice pitched too tight and too high. “What did you mean at the time?”

He draws the quilt under his chin. “What it sounds like.” Crowley mulls over the thought before rolling his head to look at the angel. “What did you think I meant?”

Aziraphale is holding the book a few scant inches from his nose. “I thought I was to blame. Maybe I was, but I thought… it was because we had quarrelled. Because I had chosen the wrong side over ours. Over you. Was I… mistaken?” He can hear the unspoken request. ‘Please help me understand.’

He blinks slowly. “You thought…” he can’t piece the second half of the idea together.

“I thought you were saying our friendship,” Aziraphale’s voice goes so taut he has to pause and clear his throat, “was beyond repair because of me. I wouldn’t have faulted you for it.”

“Oh.”

Crowley swallows, and his eyelashes are damp and clumped together.

“But, clearly it wasn’t the case. Or I hope it wasn’t.” The angel is staring resolutely at the text before him.

“Wasn’t,” the serpent offers softly, his heart tearing itself into pieces. _I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Wasn’t you. Not like that._

“You also said,” Aziraphale lowers the book to his lap along with his eyes, “that my bookshop burned down. You had a souvenir.”

Crowley can feel his heart racing. All the warmth from the wassail drains from his body, ice water left in his veins instead.

“Aziraphale-”

“I remember where that book was, Crowley,” and he can see the angel’s fingers are trembling along the edges of the admittedly less momentous book in his lap. As he tries to keep his tone light. “You also said my bookshop burned down, that it wasn’t there anymore.” Azirahphale swallows, “I didn’t really think about it at the time, there was… so much to do. So much to deal with, but I’ve… well, ever since you left I’ve been thinking about it, over and over. While I was looking for you. And I’ve been… wondering.”

“You make it sound like I’ve been gone ages,” Crowley breathes out a self-deprecating laugh.

Aziraphale’s fingers suddenly grip the edges of the book, the tips of them white and bloodless with pressure.

Crowley stops laughing.

“Angel,” he feels a little nauseous again. “How, how long was I gone?”

“What did you mean when you said you’d lost your best friend, Crowley?”

 _When did you get so good at answering a question with a question?_ “I- you don’ wanna know-”

“I thought _I’d_ lost my best friend,” the angel says brokenly, suddenly pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. Curls down over his lap, “So, I-I want to know. So I don’t. Lose you.”

 _Oh God, oh fuck. I’m not drunk enough for this. Oh fuck, oh shit._ “Angel-”

“How did you get that book?”

“Picked it up,” he can smell smoke. His mouth feels like a pot crusted with burnt cider.

Aziraphale straightens his spine, sharply composing himself. Draws in a breath, and softly closes the book with one hand. “Under what circumstances?”

Crowley twists over onto his back, his stomach clenching and twitching uncontrollably. “How long was I gone, angel?” he repeats the question hoarsely. Head spinning as he takes in Aziraphale’s carefully masked misery.

The angel sets aside his book, and turns towards him. Reaches forward and tips the glass in the demon’s hand sideways, spilling wassail onto the floor. He firmly plucks the glass from Crowley’s weak and stunned fingers.

“I won’t make you sober up any further, but I’m cutting you off.”

He has the strangest sense of deja vu. _Spain._

“Sorry. Dunno how that happened.” He feels shame wash over him. So much shame he doesn’t bother to miracle away the mess.

“What happened to all of a sudden bring about a crisis on par with the fourteenth century or the Inquisition, Crowley?” The angel’s voice is tense, all semblance of ease forgotten now.

 _Oh. That’s your game._ The realization is incidental because the answer spills off his tongue, too raw and too honest from his too hollow chest.

“I thought you _died_ Aziraphale!”

_It’s going to sound so stupid, been in the shop half a dozen times at least since then. Don’t know why I couldn’t take it anymore._

Aziraphale closes his eyes with a quiet exhale, going unnaturally still. There’s a gravity, a weight to every line of his face. He doesn’t draw in a new breath for the longest time.

“You were _gone_. I couldn’t, I c’n always… always been able to find you, sense you. And you were just… just.. There was _nothing_ where I should have felt _something.”_ Somebody. _Couldn’t cope. You know. Please tell me you know why so I don’t have to say it._

“And the fire? It was already burning when you got there, wasn’t it?” The angel opens his eyes, wet and full, and gives him such a piercing look he might as well throw his sunglasses out the window.

“Y-yeah,” he nods weakly.

“You’ve been gone over three months, Crowley.”

The words feel like a punch to the chest.

“What?” His fingers twist the quilt, draw it tighter around his ribs.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Aziraphale says haltingly. “You were _gone_. I was so _worried_.”

“This, this whole time?”

 _“Yes_ this whole time, you idiot! You scared the daylights out of me!”

Crowley arches back, and presses his hands to his face with a half-groan, half-laugh.

“Fuck. ‘M sorry, angel.”

_I didn’t mean to hurt you. Love you too much, that’s all. I’d say it now, but I don’t want to say it like this. To try and make things better. Like I’m trying to win an argument. It’s not a band-aid._

“It’s alright,” there’s a steady weight on top of his shin this time. The gentlest squeeze. “It’s alright, you’re back. I found you,” Aziraphale sounds so _relieved_. “It sounds like you had quite the ordeal… You could have told me you weren’t comfortable in the bookshop. We can spend time here instead.”

“Wasn’t… not at first,” Crowley says, dragging his hands down his face. He feels like the core of an apple, protective flesh all rotted away. “But I was… ask me again, about the book.” He can’t quite force the words out, but if Aziraphale asks, he’s bound to eventually answer.

“About how you obtained the book?” There’s no confusion on the other’s face. “All right. Under what circumstances did you pick up the book?”

 _Unmeasurable despair. World-ending grief._ “Inside.” He shivers, wraps the quilt tighter around himself. Twists the cloth into an unmitigated, strangling mess.

“Inside? Yes it was inside the shop,” the angel trails off with a frown. Then his eyes widen. “Crowley, _no._ You didn’t!”

“Yeah… I ran into the flames to look for you.” _There’s no amount of fire I wouldn’t walk through for you, don’t you know that? Hellfire and back again._

“Oh, my poor, poor Crowley, my _dear_ Crowley!”

“Stop,” he squirms and pulls the quilt over his head to hide the heat in his cheeks. “It was stupid.”

“I’m sorry I frightened you.” Crowley goes very still underneath the blanket. “I didn’t mean to leave you. I was trying to come back to you.”

Crowley swallows, half-chokes on a laugh. “You did… You _did._ ” The realization is almost enough to sober him.

_You came back to me, so it was all okay again. ‘Cept I guess I’m not a hundred percent okay. But maybe that’s alright because you’ll just keep finding me when I’m not, yeah?_

The demon pulls the quilt down, knocking his glasses askew, freeing just the top half of his face, hooking his nose above the fabric that has a wonderful, heavenly, familiar smell. _I love the way you make things smell when you miracle them up into existence. Smells like you down to the last atom. Like cider soaked into a cask._ “‘N you came back t’me again. So… thanks.” Against all odds, his heart feels lighter. Like he’s let go of a huge weight. “...Thanks f’r picking me up in bars. When I needed it.”

Aziraphale gives him a shaky, watery smile that reminds him of lunch at the Ritz.

“Anytime.”

Crowley snaps his fingers and a steaming mug appears on his stylish coffee table.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale starts, but yields when the demon holds up his hand.

“It’s f’r you. You wouldn’t let me drink alone, right?”

Aziraphale gives a low, wet chuckle. The angel brushes his thumb over his eyes quickly and he reaches out for it. “Wicked creature. Can’t go five minutes without tempting.”

“Ungrateful wretch,” Crowley sticks the very tip of his tongue out between his teeth. “Made that just for you. A lot of effort went into that. Don’t you know? If you want to build an apple pie from scratch you have to invent the universe first. Same thing applies to wassail.”

Aziraphale lets out a deep, satisfying belly laugh. “Seems like an awful lot of effort.”

“Worth it,” Crowley’s mouth moves in time with his thoughts.

“Well, if you aren’t going to sober up, I suppose I should indulge a little. Just so you aren’t lonely.” There’s the tell tale sound of a miracle, and there’s a glass of water on the table waiting for him.

_It’s worth it, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t want what I want. If we never, if I never tell you—because this alone is worth it._

_Loving you is worth it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge shout out to wargoddess9 for giving this and the next chapter a quick beta read!


	5. Precession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are countless ways to chart the passage of time. Each of them are incorrect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Resolution. ~~54 ish days late, but eh, here we are!~~

There are countless ways to chart the passage of time. There are different ways to chart the passing of a year. You can link it to the solar cycle, a full revolution around the sun. Toss in an extra day or second here and there to make the math line up.

You can chart the passage of time with the waxing and waning of the moon. If you try to line it up with the Earth’s revolution around the sun, you’ll have to fudge more than just a day and some leap seconds.

You can chart the journey of the planets across the sky. Live long enough, leave enough star charts behind, you can track the movement of the Earth’s precession. The North Star hasn't always been the same nail in a sure place. Watch as Polaris is usurped as Thuban was before. Watch as the shepherd who crowns King Cepheus’s head takes the throne. Then Deneb in roughly 8,000 solar years. Track it out farther and Vega will take command. Maybe Orihime won’t have to wait to cross the Milky Way if she’s the star that sailors swear by. Or maybe by then the Polynesian way of reckoning years will have returned, and Vega will ring in the new year as well as hold north. Maybe Orpheus’s lyre will be powerful enough to drown out his own doubts. Go farther forward still, pull out the nail that all the other stars revolve around, and hammer it back in Thuban’s spot.

Or you can stick with three hundred sixty-five days and have done with it.

It hasn’t been three hundred sixty-five days since he ran out of Aziraphale’s shop. Since the angel took him home and took care of him in his flat. It hasn’t even been three.

It hasn’t been three hundred sixty-five days since the world ended. Since Aziraphale died. (Thank someone, anyone, that he’d broken with tradition, coming back the same hour, instead of three days later.)

There’s one hour until one year ends and another begins.

They’re in the British Museum, wandering in the dark. Away from the drunks and fireworks and fuss outside that will erupt at midnight. They much preferred the humble day-to-day items over the pieces that drew in tourists from the world over. (Though they did stop in to have the usual critique of the Holy Thorn Reliquary which they both agreed was ‘a bit much.’) Sometimes the two of them would sneak into the storage halls to look at the items not on display, but tonight they are content to wander the bits and pieces of history the curators had chosen for display.

“Oh! I remember that one. It looked so fetching on you, my dear.” Aziraphale stops in front of a cabinet of Celtic jewelry. Crowley recognizes the golden torque, terminating in a pair of snake heads. He’d been rather fond of it.

“Huh, so that’s where that one ended up. Knew I’d left it somewhere.”

“We could take it back, you know.” Aziraphale gives Crowley a sidelong look of mischief. “It was yours, after all.”

Crowley considers. “Hm. Is it though? Been long enough I don’t have a single cell on me that ever touched it.” This is another way to chart time. The rate at which cells replace themselves. Microscopic planks on the ship of Theseus. He stands in a new body, reborn. (But not redeemed. Never redeemed.) Is he the same being who used to own it? If he lost it does it still belong to him?

“Tosh. I gave it to you, so I say it’s yours!” Aziraphale waves his hand and a moment later the space in the cabinet is empty, and the gold settles heavy around Crowley’s neck. He goes weak at the knees from the weight of something else.

“Angel!” He can’t tell if he sounds aghast or delighted. “That’s _stealing_.”

“Oh we’re just borrowing for a bit,” Aziraphale says good naturedly, reaching out to pat Crowley on the back of the hand. “We’ll put it back.”

All these methods of reckoning the passage of time are incorrect.

Crowley charts the aging of the universe with all the times he hasn’t said the words blossoming in his throat.

_I love you when you’re wicked. I love you when you’re good. I love you when you surprise me, even when you shouldn’t, after six thousand years._

The world had ended, and they still haven't said it.

_I wanted to tell you in Rome. I should have told you in Wessex. When we were in Messana, listening to that performance of Virgil’s poetry—to his shepherd pining for perfect Alexis. I felt it then. Growing like a cancer. Hollow my bones out a second time, burn away the marrow, fill those voids with you and wait. Wait the hundred million years for the light of stars to finish their journey to the Earth. See what I change into next. Measure out time by the thousand, thousand, thousand times I didn't say it._

The words thrash around in his lungs, weighted down by gold. Cover the walls of his throat like ivy.

"'Mazing," is all that he manages to eke out. Not at all what he wants to say. _It's been four heartbeats since I didn't tell you._

Aziraphale looks like he's sunbathing. "Let's see what else we can find."

Crowley follows Aziraphale through the exhibits. Through history. Through the countless moments he almost let it slip. The carriage rides they shared, with brushing knees that threatened to erode his barriers. The Roman baths rife with temptation. The first production of _Izutsu,_ where he'd held back the urge to curse the actors for their ability to speak freely under their masks. When the sleeve of Aziraphale’s kimono hung just right in the summer breeze.

_I almost said it just now. When you took back that pocket watch you lost in a game of cards with Kipling. When I envied your hands winding the springs._

The world had ended, and he can't say it.

"You've been quiet a while my dear, is something on your mind?"

_Always. Forever._

"Guess so," Crowley bites his lip. _I almost said it then. I can't. I can't._

Aziraphale looks him up and down. _It’s so dark in here. Can you see me? Please don’t see me right now. Let me melt into the shadows. Don’t see what I’ve been dying to say._ "Can I help in some way?"

_Yes._

"Just something I've been thinking about for a long time." Crowley immediately bites his tongue.

"Oh? How long?"

“Not sure.”

_Since always._

The gentle tilt of Aziraphale’s head is _devastating_ and Crowley’s mouth falls open, tongue listless and heavy. Feels his lungs inflate with the force of unspoken words.

"I-I'll tell you next year."

He means it.

He wants it to be true.

(He knows it's a lie.)

Aziraphale laughs, and it isn’t unkind, isn’t cruel. It’s soft and sweet and echoes in the empty silence around them.

“I’ll look forward to it then.” Those eyes crinkle, and Crowley wants to bathe in the distant starlight he sees within them.

There are countless ways to ring in a new year. Eat a grape every time the clock chimes at midnight, start the year with something sweet. There are riotous festivals which Crowley approves of. Vast orgies of color and sound and parades and fireworks. (In ages past sometimes there were actual orgies.) China, in particular, has perfected this type of celebration, and he’s always had a soft spot for their vibrant dragon dances when the lunar cycle reaches its end. Where humans tell themselves the charming, true story of how they drive off the bloodthirsty Nian, stave off ruin and desolation one more year.

There are other ways to welcome a new year and banish the old. There are hundreds of little traditions meant to get rid of evil spirits. Leave the windows open. Toss a bucket of water out of it for good measure—doesn’t even need to be holy. Jump off a chair. Throw an old plate or a glass against a loved one’s house. Light a bonfire and sprinkle some water. Clean the house, spic and span. Take a rug outside and beat it. Burn an effigy, immolate the old year and drive off unwelcome visitors like Crowley.

(The closest he's been to welcome at the changing of a cycle was with the Celts. Even then he was only appeased. Given gifts at the fringes, at the boundaries. Come this close, but come no further. _Please take this paltry offering and go away, pass us over, ignore us doing this. If you come too close we have defenses to drive you away._ It's fine. Crowley's a big fan of spooky, and he's well versed in respecting boundaries. Looking from the outside in.)

“Made your resolutions yet?” He has to say _something_ or else the unsaid will choke him. Like twisted gold around his throat. Flee his mouth like an unwelcome spirit.

“Bit early, don’t you think?”

“Ah-ha. The high and mighty angel thinks he’s too above self-improvement,” the smile that curves his lips is nothing but fond.

Aziraphale flusters and Crowley laughs.

(He is a demon. It is not a pantomime. He is not a king pretending to throw off his regalia in submission to something greater. Smacked around by priests like a rug until he weeps while he professes his innocence, his humility. Shedding tears to move a god to restore him to what he was before. Crowley will hold on to his sins, and he will burn before he weeps.)

“You know that isn’t what I meant at all!”

Welcome visitors can exchange gifts and well-wishes. Figs and honey or—even better—alcohol. Don’t cross the threshold empty-handed. Unfold a banquet. Give even grander gifts to a king. Spread seven symbols of spring on a table. Spend the day getting drunk and being idle. If you’re Roman, be industrious for a fruitful year. (Fuck the Romans.)

“What do you think then? _Sell more books to spread knowledge and joy among humans?”_

The angel clutches his chest, scandalized, “That’s the cruelest, meanest, most unkindest thing you’ve ever said to me—take it back this instant!”

“Never,” he can’t help his wicked grin.

“Horrible!” Aziraphale pouts at him through a glare, and the utter lack of stakes lets Crowley cackle loud and deep. “Hmph.” Despite being shorter, the angel somehow manages to look down his nose at Crowley. “What about you? Have you made your resolution yet?”

This is another way to welcome the new year. Make promises you never intend to keep. Hold up impossible goals, an idealized self that can never be reached.

Crowley shrugs, “You know me. Don’t go in for that sort of thing. Self-betterment.” _Unrepentant. That's what I am._

The angel opens his mouth to say something, but then Aziraphale looks down at the recently wound watch. “Oh! Quite close to midnight now!” There’s a little sway and Aziraphale reaches down between them and takes Crowley by the hand. Pulling him through the exhibitions. To a set of large windows that look out over the Thames—rather than the rows and rows of Victorian buildings crowded together on Russell Street.

It isn’t midnight just yet, but fireworks have started anyway. Bright bursts of color that have come so far from their humble beginnings. They even engineer different shapes and sounds now. Fizzles and booms. Hearts and smiley faces.

Aziraphale faces the window, bathed in the glow of moonlight and fireworks. (It’s a little too perfect, no streetlights at all, for a start.) He holds the watch out in his palm, watching the motion of the clock hand as much as the main event.

“What were you thinking about all evening?” The question is asked to the face of the watch. Careful and unassuming.

Crowley swallows, the motion of it strains against the reclaimed torque. Like the golden orbit of the sun from the geocentric point of view, not yet complete. He licks achingly dry lips. Teases the split at the very center of his lower lip until it hurts.

“Isn’t next year yet.”

This is the precise moment Crowley realizes _Oh God_ he _has_ made a New Year’s resolution.

The quirk at the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth tests the very limit of his soul. “That depends on where you are on the globe.”

_I love you. Love you so much it hurts. Like a split lip, like a black hole. Like a fossil buried deep in my chest. Another cheap joke. The demon in love with the angel. Like a punchline—and I don’t care._

“If where we are doesn’t matter, then why are you so keen on your pocketwatch there?”

_I love you. Love you like the second hand on a watch. Like a gear that winds the spring to keep time. A secret note slipped between one of the million pages you hoard in your shop. Like a lost coin purse in these archives. Please don't find it._

There’s a hum, a throaty noise of amusement. “Oh, tradition, I suppose. Mostly for fun.”

He wants to ask who invented the tradition of the New year's kiss. _Was that one of ours or one of yours? What is it supposed to mean?_ A pale imitation of a sex rite? Humans have been doing it for so long, Crowley doesn’t remember when it started.

_I love you and I don’t know when it started. I think. If a demon can love. If this isn’t love I’m terrified of what it would really feel like._

He watches the minute hand inch closer to the top of the clock face. Somehow the new year seems to be coming on faster than it should. His eyes flick up to Aziraphale’s gently smiling mouth.

“I’ll tell you next year,” his throat is so dry.

_I love you so much it terrifies me. I love you so much I kept it to myself so you wouldn’t give it away like a flaming sword. Couldn’t let it burn you like a motorway. Like a falling star. What if you couldn’t contain it? You can’t even keep your love for humanity under lock and key. If you love me back that is. (Please say you do. Please say you don’t. Don’t. Do. Don’t say it.)_

He can see the shift of Aziraphale’s eyebrow in the blush of blue from the fireworks outside. “Will you?”

_I won’t._

“Yes,” he hates that he sounds like a liar. _Didn’t say when, did I? Could wait another twelve months. Longer, even. Reckon it any way I like. Make a year last two hundred nineteen thousand days. Multiply that times all the times I didn’t say it._

“Hm.” The very tilt of Aziraphale’s head conveys his skepticism more than the hum, than his words. “I wonder.”

“Do you?” His throat closes on him, cracks his words in twain. _I love you so much I can’t tell you. I love you so much I don’t know how to do anything else._

“Would I have asked if I didn’t?”

Crowley flicks his eyes back to the watch in Aziraphale’s hand.

“Hey,” he should summon some champagne for a toast to the new year. “‘S getting close. Thirty seconds.” There’s the distant pulse of fireworks winding down into a perfect lull before the finale. “Countdown?”

Aziraphale wiggles happily, blond hair and lashes briefly glowing green and he snaps the watch shut, “Oh yes, let’s.”

Crowley isn’t sure what to do with himself, what to do with Aziraphale facing him like this.

“Yeah.”

He flexes his hands, fingers twitching uselessly. Envious of Aziraphale’s watch again, from the other side this time. If he has something to hold his hands won't get ideas.

_I love you so much I can count your eyelashes when we spend years apart. I love you so much I have to hide behind these sunglasses so I can look you in the eye._

“Crowley?”

_I love you so much it terrifies._

“Yeah?” He can’t quite bring himself to meet Aziraphale’s gaze. He keeps getting drawn to those perfect, plush, uncracked lips. A midnight mouth, made to be spoiled _. Think it goes back to the Romans. Of course it does._ (Fuck the Romans.)

“There was another reason I was keeping time.” It sounds like the kind of thing someone says to preface something momentous.

_I love you so much I don’t know what to do._

Aziraphale takes a step closer to him.

“Angel?”

“Some things are worth doing right.”

His heart kicks into overdrive, adrenaline bleeds into his blood. “What-what things?”

_I love that you could kill me with that laugh, that smile. Bury me in your happiness, wrap it around me like a shroud._

“I’ll tell you next year,” Aziraphale’s eyes are crinkled with his most endearing sort of smile. “Now count.”

He doesn’t hear the fireworks perfectly timed to the countdown of the new year. He can only hear the pounding of his heart and Aziraphale.

“T-Ten.”

_I love you._

“Nine,” Aziraphale answers, low and smooth.

_I’ll tell you. I promise I’ll tell you._

“Eight,” he whispers weakly. _It’s been one heartbeat since I haven’t told you._

“Seven.”

Crowley doesn’t realize he’s been backing up until he feels the cool glass of a window at his back.

_I’ll tell you._

“Six,” it sounds more like a question. _Love you so much I can’t fucking count. You’ll laugh when I tell you that._

“Five.”

Crowley’s heart pounds and eclipses another explosion of a firework as Aziraphale’s toes stop just in front of his own.

“Four.” His voice gets smaller and smaller. _I’ll tell you._ He can’t clutch the smooth glass under his palms, but he tries anyway. Has to settle for pressing them flat against the pane. _I promise._

“Three,” Aziraphale breathes the word and Crowley doesn’t know what to do when knuckles graze his cheek.

_I won’t._

“Two?” Why is he holding his breath?

_I promise I won’t._

“One. Crowley?” He makes a sound as Aziraphale cups his cheeks with both hands. “Happy New Year, my love.”

“Wh-” _Oh._ Crowley finds out just how soft those lips really are as they cover his, chapped and cracked. Somewhere in the distance over the Thames at least a thousand fireworks ignite and explode followed by a thousand more. Above his heartbeat he can just barely make out Ben’s booming bells. He leans back against the window, unable to hold himself up on his legs alone.

It tastes like revelation in his mouth as the angel flicks his tongue against his lips, as Crowley lets him in. It turns centuries of secret-keeping on its head.

_You know._

He should feel stupid.

_You were never oblivious._

Instead he feels free.

_I don’t have to say it. You’ve always known._

Relief feels an awful lot like security, like wrapping his limbs around his angel.

_I promise I will._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to wargoddess9 and Epivet both for looking at this chapter before it went up! My most supreme love!


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